Shared Loss
by Cinomarsh
Summary: Sweeney talks to Mrs. Lovett on the anniversary of her husband's death.


**Hello again! Author here! Just wanted to say that I know this one's a bit similar to the last one, but I wanted to write another one-shot and this was what I got. I hope you enjoy! I don't own anything but my pen name, of course.**

I was exhausted. I'd had lots of customers that day, which was good, but killing is a lot more tiring than one might assume. As I watched the tiny, insignificant Londoners wander about from my window, I decided I wanted a drink. Unfortunately, the only alcohol available to me was downstairs in the cupboard, dreadfully close to the baker and her boy. I sighed as I crossed the room, opened the door and walked down the aging steps into the pie shop.

I could see Mrs. Lovett through the window, standing behind her cluttered counter and speaking to the boy, who was listening intently. He obeyed her every request without question. It was almost sad how blindly he followed her, unaware of who she was or what she did. This barely crossed my mind, of course, as I pushed open the door of the shop. The boy started and stared at me for a moment, his eyes plagued with the same fear I saw in his eyes every time I entered a room. He turned to give his adoptive mother a quick smile before bolting into the parlor.

The baker, however, barely seemed fazed by my entrance, which was fairly out of place for her. Usually, when I was near her, her eyes would light up and she'd smile and attempt to make conversation with me, stealing glances at me when she thought I didn't notice, which I did. But today she just looked at me, the corner of her mouth turned up just slightly in the beginnings of a smirk, although it seemed that the tiny smile was only for my benefit.

"Fancy a drink, love?" She offered. I nodded once and sat down at the table across the room.

To my surprise, she came back to the table with a bottle of gin and two glasses, filled one, and took a drink of it.

_Oh God_, I thought, _Now she'll try to talk to me_. But she didn't say anything. Her face looked empty, unhappy, and despite the fact that I'd rarely seen her unhappy before, her expression was strangely familiar.

I poured myself a glass of gin and took a swig myself. What did it matter if she was upset? Less for me to deal with. But Mrs. Lovett was renowned for her energy and positivity. Seeing her this way was almost unnerving.

We drank in silence for a while, and I noticed that she kept glancing towards the picture hanging by the door, the picture of her late husband, Albert, and I realized why her expression was so familiar to me. I'd worn it many times when I'd first learned of my beautiful Lucy's death.

_Lucy_... My mind wandered to her smiling face, her vibrant yellow hair, her pale skin... God, I missed her so much...

The sound of Mrs. Lovett's glass hitting the table again snapped me out of my trance. This woman could hold her liquor, that was for sure. But now I had a theory as to why she was sad, and I wanted to test it out.

"Mrs. Lovett?"

"Hm?" She responded, her head snapping from the picture to me, her face looking as if she, too, had been in a trance.

"When did Albert die?" I asked. Her eyes wandered to the picture again, and her voice seemed far away when she answered.

"Three years ago today." She told me. "It doesn't seem like that long ago at all..." She added, more to herself than to me.

My theory was correct, and I should have been satisfied, but part of me had always wondered about her relationship with Albert, and I figured asking her now would be better than asking her when she was back to being... Herself.

"How did he die?" I asked. Her head turned back to me, a smirk on her lips.

"It wasn't me, if that's what you were thinkin'." She said.

I chuckled slightly.

"I didn't think that."

Her smirk faded, leaving behind that painfully familiar look of loss.

"It was gout, in the end." She said, her voice an echo of past grief. "I knew it was comin' for a long time before it 'appened, it wasn't a surprise, but still..." She trailed off.

"You loved 'im." I said. It was half statement, half question. How much could she really have loved him to be so irritatingly in love with me now?

Mrs. Lovett gave a wry smile.

"'E loved me, so I loved 'im. I was lonely. 'E came along, said all the right things, was never cruel to me... I miss having someone who cared about me that much. If it wasn't love, it was still better than bein' alone." She wouldn't look me in the eye, and I knew what she'd meant. Her relationship with Albert had been better than my constantly ignoring her.

"Still," she continued, sitting up straight and taking a last drink from her glass, "my bein' sad's not going to 'elp 'im six feet under." And with that, she stood up, took her glass and walked over to the counter. I watched at she began to clean up for the night, hardly paying attention to me at all, her mind clearly elsewhere.

For one terrifying moment, I felt sorry for this woman. This clever, amoral, terrible woman who served murder victims to the general public. I pitied her desire to be loved. Her husband had loved her and left her, and now the last thing she had to love her was the boy. I thought that it must be so painful sometimes.

But soon that terrifying moment of pity was over, and I was just about to leave the shop, when I saw the baker in the corner of my eye. She was wiping away a tear. I tried to limit my contact with this woman as much as I could, but tonight, maybe just a little bit more was necessary.

"Mrs. Lovett?" I asked, turning to face her. She turned to face me, too, a question in her eyes.

"Goodnight." I told her.

"Goodnight, Mr. Todd." She responded.

Her confused expression stuck in my mind as I climbed back up to the barber shop.


End file.
